Ireland's Energy Supply and Security of Supply

First Look: Ireland's Energy Supply and Security of Supply in 2024

This note is part of the ‘First Look’ series of publications from the Energy Statistics Team in SEAI. These publications aim to rapidly disseminate key energy insights from SEAI’s data releases, addressing the need for timely and trusted data to inform evidence-led energy policy and determine the pace of progress against binding energy and climate targets.

This First Look note provides key insights into Ireland's energy supply and the security of that energy supply in 2024. It summarises the imports, exports, and indigenous production of energy in Ireland, the energy-related emissions, levels of installed capacity for wind and solar generation, the international sources of our heating and transport oil-products, and the level of national oil reserves held.

This note includes a comprehensive set of technical appendices that provide additional details and tabulated data relevant to energy supply and the security of energy supply in Ireland over the last decade, mainly based on data from the interim 2024 national energy balance, published by SEAI on 21st of May 2025.

Key content

Energy supply

•    Breakdowns of Irelands national energy requirement by energy product and time
•    Breakdowns of Ireland's electricity supply by source
•    Trends in wind and solar-PV capacities and generation
•    Trends in biofuel blending into road transport fuels
•    SEAI estimates of energy-related emissions in the context of carbon budget sectoral emission ceilings
 

Security of energy supply

•    Breakdown of Irelands energy requirement by supply stream, i.e. by imports, indigenous production, etc.
•    2023-to-2024 changes in net imports and indigenous production by energy product
•    Ireland's overall energy import dependency and product specific import dependencies
•    Supply streams for key oil products
•    Imports of key oil-products like crude oil, diesel, gasoline, and kerosene by partner country
•    The emergency oil stocks held by Ireland

Technical Highlights

•    Ireland’s total primary energy requirement was 167.5 TWh in 2024, up 2.3% on 2023-levels
•    Fossil fuels accounted for 81.4% of Ireland’s total primary energy requirement in 2024
•    Ireland used 0.7% more fossil fuels in 2024 than it did in 2023
•    Oil products accounted for just under half (48.9%) of Ireland’s total primary energy requirement in 2024

•    Renewable energy accounted for 14.5% of Ireland’s total primary energy requirement in 2024
•    Ireland’s renewable energy supply was 24.2 TWh in 2024, up 5.6% on 2023-levels 
•    Wind energy accounted for just under half (47.2%) of Ireland’s renewable energy in 2024
•    Ireland’s total installed wind-capacity was 4.9 GW in 2024
•    Ireland’s total installed solar-PV capacity (AC) was 1.3 GW in 2024, up 75% on 2023-levels

•    Energy-related emissions in 2024 were down 1.3% on 2023-levels

•    Natural gas, wind, and net-imports of electricity accounted for 88% of Ireland’s gross electricity supply in 2024
•    Ireland net-imported 5.1 TWh of electricity in 2024, up over 50% on 2023-levels
•    Net-imports of electricity accounted for 14% of Ireland’s gross electricity supply in 2024

•    Ireland’s overall energy import dependency in 2024 was 79.7%, up from 78.3% in 2023
•    94% of Ireland’s energy imports in 2024 were fossil fuels
•    61% of Ireland’s indigenous production of energy in 2024 came from renewable energy
•    Ireland imported all its oil and coal, and 79.5% of its natural gas supply in 2024

Further reading

This new report provides annual updates on the security of Ireland's energy supply. Further background on the broader topic of energy security can be found in SEAI's Energy Security in Ireland 2020 report, and in the Government's Energy Security in Ireland to 2030 strategy.